Posts tagged “oil paints”

So this is the final painting of the challenge. Meet ‘Mr T’ who is owned by my friend, Caz. We have enjoyed many hacks out together over the pass few years and I am so grateful to Caz for giving me the opportunity to ride him at times when I had no horse to ride. I produced a pencil drawing of ‘T’ for one of my 100 day challenge pieces two years ago and thought it would finish the 30 day challenge off nicely if I were to finally depict him in paint.

With this one being the final painting, it has made me think about what I’ve learnt from the project. I had only made the progression from pencil to paint just over a year ago and felt that I had a long way to go in terms of learning about colour and how to use oils properly. So when Jane asked me if I’d like to take part in a painting challenge I jumped at the chance as I knew it would be a good learning curve but deep down I had doubts as to whether I could actually do it.

I felt completely comfortable using oils from the very beginning of the challenge and knew that this medium was the right one for me but was worried about the drying times and whether I could get one done in a day. The project allowed me to get to grips with how they worked, what effects could be made and just how quickly I could paint with them. I found that by using them thinly and using a quick drying medium with the paint, it enabled me to complete them quite easily within a day. After painting for an entire month with oils I have fallen in love with them even more and now feel I’m beginning to find my own style, a style which I can now start to build upon in future works.

Colour was also an issue and I truly believed that it would become a problem for me once the challenge had started. For years I have been daunted by colour with colour mixing being the scariest thing of all for me together with what colours to put down in a painting instead of just one colour alone. To my amazement, the more I started to ‘look’ at what i was painting, the more colours I was seeing. I felt like I had had a lightbulb moment and realised that I hadn’t been ‘looking’ at things properly. Since the challenge Ican now see all sorts of different colours around me and I really enjoy trying to work out what paint colours I’d use to recreate certain objects, especially when I’m out walking. It really is as though a veil has been lifted from my eyes and I can finally see things properly. I would say this is one of the greatest achievements I have gained from doing this challenge.

The 30 day challenge has been an incredible journey for both Jane and I and it has helped us both to progress in different ways. I would certainly recommend that all artists set themselves at least one challenge a year to help develop their work. I would just like to take this opportunity to say a huge thank you to Jane for asking me to paint alongside her, it truly was an absolute pleasure. I would also like to say thank you to all of our Facebook fans for supporting us and for taking the time to like and comment on our posts. It is such a fabulous feeling to know that so many people appreciate what we do and we can’t thank you enough.

Here’s to the completion of our 30 day painting challenge and we hope you can all join us for the next one! 😉 xxx

Low resolution images are used for each painting day, this is to help to prevent unauthorised usage and downloading, hence the colours may vary slightly from that of the original.

A higher resolution image is available to view if you may be interested in purchase.